Capital Group · Financial Services · Enterprise UX
From wet ink to one click.
A 40-field paper form and a scan-and-email workflow were the only tools three roles had to manage Small Business 401k plans. I redesigned the entire experience — role by role, sprint by sprint.
Adding a single employee to a Small Business 401k plan required a phone call, an emailed paper form, a handwritten change, a scan, an email back, parallel sign-off from two parties, and a manual system update. Seven steps across three people — with no visibility into where any request stood.
Served as sole designer across a series of design sprints, each targeting a specific role. Reframed the brief from "digitize the form" to "build a single source of truth for plan changes." Designed purpose-built interfaces for Business Owners, TPAs, and Internal Associates — all acting on the same underlying record.
MVP launched and adopted by internal associates. The scan-and-email loop replaced by a single platform. Change requests became trackable in real time. Speed and visibility improved as the same outcome — not two separate ones.
The approval chain couldn't be removed. It had to be made intentional.
Role
Sole Designer
Methodology
Design Sprints
Roles Served
3 — Owner, TPA, Associate
01 — Context & Constraints
The workflow, not the form.
The ask was to modernize a dated internal tool. Mapping the actual workflow made the real problem visible fast.
Adding one employee: associate emails the full 40-50 field form → owner fills in the one relevant field → scans everything → emails it back → TPA and Internal Associate both review and sign off in parallel → associate manually updates the system. Seven steps. No visibility into where any of it stood.
The real constraints
Three roles, zero differentiation
The same paper form was the interface for everyone — a business owner changing one field a year, a TPA managing compliance across multiple plans, an Internal Associate processing updates daily. The form treated them identically.
Dual approval was non-negotiable
Both TPA and Internal Associate were required to sign off on every plan change — a compliance requirement, not bureaucracy to design around. It couldn't be eliminated. It had to be made intentional.
No shared record, no shared visibility
Before the platform, a request existed as an email attachment, a scanned PDF, a phone call someone might not remember. Nobody knew where anything was in the approval chain without asking. The absence of a shared record was the root problem.
02 — The Strategic Frame
3 Roles. 3 Design Sprints.
One sprint per role. Each a contained design problem. Purpose-built interfaces for each user type — all acting on the same underlying record.
Sprint 01 — Business Owner
Replaced the 40-50 field form with a guided, step-by-step request flow. Business owners see only the fields relevant to their specific change type.
Sprint 02 — Third Party Administrator
Shared view into the plan record with the ability to review and approve change requests directly in the platform. Read-plus-approve — no direct edit access to a regulated record.
Sprint 03 — Internal Associate (Primary MVP)
The core deliverable. 40-50 fields organized into tabbed sections: Plan Info, Contributions, Eligibility, Distributions, Admin. Both approvals tracked in the same place.
Business Owner portal — dashboard and guided change request flow
The approval workflow was a constraint, not a choice
Both TPA and Internal Associate approval on every plan change — in parallel, both required. That wasn't going away. What changed: instead of a request disappearing into an email chain, it lived in the platform. Both reviewers notified simultaneously, acting on the same record. The approval chain stayed intact. The chaos around it was gone.
03 — The Key Insight
The Cmd+F Finding
User testing on the Internal Associate experience surfaced a specific tension. Some associates pushed back on the tabbed layout — they wanted a single, scrollable long page. We pushed back and asked why.
The stated preference vs. the real need
Associates pushed back on the tabbed layout — they wanted a single long page. When we asked why, the answer was specific: they used Cmd+F to jump to the field they needed. Tabbed navigation broke that behavior. We gave them what they actually needed: a persistent search bar and a View All tab. The organized structure stayed intact. Power users got their speed back.
Earning trust through testing, not assertion
The Cmd+F finding was the inflection point. Once we showed we understood how they actually worked — and addressed it directly — resistance shifted to advocacy. The workarounds weren't needed. They just had to see it.
View All tab with persistent search — “safe harbor” surfaces two matches across sections
04 — The Design Decisions
Authority Encoded in Interface, Not Just Permissions
Tabs as primary navigation, search as power-user escape hatch
The tabbed structure maps to how 401k plans are structured as documents — Plan Info, Contributions, Eligibility, Distributions, Admin. Associates build a mental model quickly. The search bar handles experienced users without dismantling the structure.
The View All tab as deliberate pressure valve
Rather than fighting the long-page preference, we accommodated it explicitly. View All drops into an unfiltered view for complex changes or senior associates who have internalized the full field set.
The entire IA shifts by role, not just the permissions
Business Owner: only the fields relevant to their change. Internal Associate: full record with workflow context — pending requests, change history, validation status. Same data. Completely different frames.
The Flow in Motion
From change request to approved.
Business owner initiates a change, it routes through the platform, and both the TPA and Internal Associate approve — in parallel, tracked the whole way.
05 — Outcomes
One Place. No More Guessing.
Seven steps became one request
The phone call, emailed form, scan, email back, chased approvals, and manual update — replaced by a single tracked request that all three parties act on in the same platform.
Speed and visibility were the same outcome
The platform didn't speed things up by cutting steps — it sped things up by making every step visible. When reviewers can see what's waiting, the required approval chain stops feeling like a bottleneck.
The compliance requirement became a feature
Dual approval was non-negotiable. In the paper process it was invisible friction. In the platform it became an explicit, trackable workflow state. The requirement didn't change. The experience of it did.
MVP shipped · feedback in hand
Launched with real associates. Post-launch feedback grounded in actual usage — a better foundation for phase two than any pre-launch assumption.